Vol.99 No.9 contentsPRACTICA OTO-RHINO-LARYNGOLOGICA
Vol. 99 No. 9 September 2006
The Usefulness of FDG-PET in Diagnosing Head
and Neck Cancer-Report of Four Cases-
Kazunori Matsuda
(Tokushima Prefectural Hospital)
Yoshiaki Kitamura, Kazunori Sekine, Katsushi Miyazaki,
Koichi Tamura and Noriaki Takeda
(Tokushima University)
Yuka Yamamoto and Yoshihiro Nishiyama
(Kagawa University)
FDG-PET (2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography) is clinically useful in detecting head and neck cancer providing accurate estimate of primary cancer and metastasis lymph node especially in cancers that are equivocal on conventional imaging. FDG-PET scan shows unknown primary cancer and metastatic lymph nodes that appear normal CT scan/or MRI. Furthmore, whole body FDG-PET makes it possible to simultaneously detect distant metastasis.
We reported 4 cases of head and neck cancer and showed the efficacy of 2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) in the diagnosis of head and neck cancer. FDG-PET is highly useful for detecting previously unrecognized primary cancer with lymph node metastasis to the neck. FDG-PET also has a high potential for detecting neck lymph node metastasis, staging head and neck cancer and assessing its response to irradiation and chemotherapy. Finally, FDG-PET is useful for diagnosing recurrent or residual head and neck cancer and its distant metastasis.
Key words :
FDG (2-[18F]-fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose), PET (positron emission tomography), Head and neck cancer